


Immediate

by lovable_and_lovable



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 18:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovable_and_lovable/pseuds/lovable_and_lovable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holt pauses. “The rules for this type of assignment are very strict. Only immediate family may be informed.” Amy thinks he might be giving her a Mentoring Look.</p><p>“So…” Amy says, a smile growing on her face, “if Jake was my immediate family…”</p><p>It’s definitely a Mentoring Look. “You have twenty-four hours. I’ll cover for you.”</p><p>And so begins the not-so-romantic (but also, pretty damn romantic) story of how Amy Santiago proposed to Jake Peralta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immediate

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this](http://bossyknow-it-all.tumblr.com/post/138565663443/okay-but-a-cruel-thing-has-just-crossed-my-mind-we) tumblr post, and probably also by reading [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5977389) fic by philthestone shortly before seeing said tumblr post. It also ignores what the episode "Adrian Pimento" said about Jake's time undercover, because I very much thought that was the show jossing itself.

“The rest of the squad will be kept unaware of your assignment,” says Captain Holt.

Amy frowns. She hadn’t thought of that, assuming that, as with Jake’s assignment to the Ianuccis, the rest of the team would be informed. “But what about Jake?”

“The assignment mandates that you break up with him in order to maintain your cover.”

“Oh no,” Amy says, shaking her head, all her panic about this assignment coming back to the surface. “Captain, look, I really want to do this assignment, and I know it’s very important, but that’s…” She can handle the loss of contact. But Jake would be so hurt, so confused, especially considering how happy and secure they’ve been lately.

Holt pauses. “The rules for this type of assignment are very strict. Only immediate family may be informed.” Amy thinks he might be giving her a Mentoring Look.

“So…” Amy says, a smile growing on her face, “if Jake was my immediate family…”

It’s definitely a Mentoring Look. “You have twenty-four hours. I’ll cover for you.”

And so begins the not-so-romantic (but also, pretty damn romantic) story of how Amy Santiago proposed to Jake Peralta.

 

* * *

 

It’s not as though Captain Holt is forcing her hand or anything. Amy already knows she wants to marry Jake, and she’s pretty confident he feels the same way, but she figured she’d wait a few more months for them to get used to it, to have some time to talk about it, or even to give him the chance to propose. Amy technically can’t tell him about the assignment unless they’re actually married, so that rules out the entirely honest approach. They’ll have to go to City Hall tomorrow morning, so Amy needs to propose tonight and pull together in a few hours a proposal that she hopes will convince Jake she’s been planning for weeks. After all, under better, less forced circumstances, Amy would plan for months. Jake deserves a proper proposal, and, assuming he says yes, she wants it to be a good story.

The first step is the ring. Amy decides she has enough in savings, and that it’s worth it, to go all out on this, even if she has a hunch Jake would be equally happy if she proposed with a dollar store ring. She leaves the precinct to go to the jeweler, deciding to figure out the rest of the plan while she’s in transit. Amy finds a ring that’s a lovely warm gold, and classically stylish but without too much pomp and circumstance. She does her best to guess the right size, erring on the side of it being a little too large.

The proposal itself is the tricky part. For starters, Amy has barely any time. If she did, she might plan something extravagant like a flash mob. It’s not exactly her style, but it would appeal to the part of Jake that thrives on an attention and planned a ridiculously elaborate date just to embarrass her. But there’s also the (perhaps larger) part of Jake that hangs out with her in her apartment for hours, content without any excitement, and whose idea of the perfect vacation was a week of lounging in bed with her. There’s the part of Amy that wants to make this the most impressively planned proposal of all time, but there’s also the part of Amy who told Jake she loved him for the first time on the spot, and would risk her perfect workplace reputation for his sake. The proposal doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be sincere, and Amy would rather spend her limited time polishing a simple proposal than coming up with one that might fall apart after only a day of planning. Really, the speech is the thing, especially for a guy so verbal in showing affection and receiving affection.

With this in mind, Amy goes to a certain spot in Prospect Park, sits down, and writes the most important speech she’s ever given—and for Amy Santiago, that’s saying something. She knows she could spend far too long revising it, and she does make several edits. When she arrives at a version that makes her feel settled, at peace with the sun on her skin and the spring breeze in the air, Amy memorizes it, then heads back to the precinct.

 

* * *

 

Right before Jake’s shift is over, Amy goes to the back of the evidence lock-up, knowing Jake will look for her there so they can go home together.

Sure enough, she hears the door open a few minutes later, and Jake call out, “Amy?”

“I’m over here,” she says, then takes a deep breath, gets down on one knee, and pulls out the ring.

When he sees her, Jake’s mouth does that opening-and-closing-like-a-fish thing. Before he can say anything, Amy starts in.

“Jake, I am deeply in love with you, for so many reasons, but here are some of the big ones. You’ve always been so considerate of my feelings. I love how good you are at communicating and how you make me feel so cared for. I love what a good friend you are and how loving you are of everyone. I love how you make me and all your friends laugh and feel valued. Every bad day is better as long as I get to see you. I could go on; I could make a binder or a scrapbook or write a Santiago-style speech with about why I love you, but you make me feel like I don’t need to. You’re the only person I don’t feel pressured to be perfect around, but I feel the most perfect and the most me when I’m with you. You’re my favorite person in the world and I want the rest of my life to be like it’s been the past year. Will you marry me?”

Jake’s staring at her, and his eyes look kind of fuzzy, but there’s a smile growing on his face, so she jokes, “You have to say yes.” _But really, you do._

“Yes,” he says softly. “Yeah, of course.”

“Oh, thank God,” says Amy, which is maybe a little too dramatic, but she couldn’t help it, okay? Jake doesn’t seem to notice anything odd about it, as he’s dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a kiss.

Jake leans his forehead against hers for a moment, then pulls back, laughing. “I’m sort of in shock, I guess,” he says, and he does look a bit shaken.

“I mean, you knew, right?” Amy says, then thinks of _Wow, you were really worried about me?_ They’ve made a lot of progress in the months since then, but maybe Jake had doubted where exactly she stood.

“I knew you were it for me. I hoped you felt the same way. I was pretty sure,” he amends, at the face Amy makes. “Either way, I wasn’t expecting a proposal this soon.”

“Well, I figured, why wait?” Amy says, trying to play it cool. That’s far from her forte, though, so luckily she has an excuse to switch to a firm tone. “And you are it for me. Everything that you could be. More than I thought anyone could be.”

“You too,” Jake murmurs, then clears his throat. “So, let’s see this ring. Wait, there was a ring, right? I barely processed it earlier.”

Amy feels herself smiling that smile that only Jake seems to bring out in her. She pulls the ring out of the box she’d set down, and slides it onto Jake’s finger. It’s a tiny bit loose, but definitely wearable.

“Wow, Ames, it’s really nice. Thank you.” Jake smiles back at her.

“Of course,” Amy says. “Ready to go home?”

“Super ready.”

 

* * *

 

Jake’s quieter than usual on the ride home, but he’s his usual cheerful self by the time they’re in her apartment. He insists they order dinner from her favorite Polish place.

After they’ve eaten and they’re taking care of the dishes, she decides to tell him about her City Hall plan. “I know you’re going to make fun of me for being overeager, but I think we should actually get married as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” Jake says easily. “Sooner we get married, the sooner the honeymoon.”

“By as soon as possible, I mean, like…tomorrow morning. At City Hall.”

Jake snorts, then frowns. “That doesn’t seem like you. No planning, no reception?”

“We can have a reception later,” Amy assures him. “I just want to make it official right away.” He’s looking at her very seriously. She doesn’t think any lines about being too excited to wait are going to work on him, not with what a terrible liar she is, so she tries a different tack. “Jake, do you trust me?”

She expects him to make a joke out of it ( _"Well I’d better, I am marrying you”_ ).

“With anything,” he says, with that sincere little half-smile that always melts her heart.

“Thanks,” says Amy. “We should go to City Hall in the morning, okay?”

“Okay,” says Jake, smiling steadfastly, and all right, as much as it threw a wrench in her plans to do it now, Amy’s so happy to be marrying him.

“I love you,” she says, and rests her cheek on his shoulder.

“I love you too,” Jake kisses her forehead. “Now quick, let’s call each other fiancé as many times as possible in the next several hours, because apparently it’s our only chance.”

 

* * *

 

The sex that night is sweet and slow. It would have been anyways, with the gravity of getting engaged, but Amy knows it’s their last time for months (if not ever, she tries not to think), and she’s determined to make it memorable, and, okay, sentimental. She goes down on him (Jake’s more than happy to return the favor, twice), praises him, tells him everything she can think of that she loves about him. They stay awake longer than usual afterwards. Jake strokes her hair and tells her how happy and relaxed he is with her, everything she does that makes him smile.

Now that the adrenaline of planning has worn off, exhaustion and worry are setting in. Amy sort of wants to be the little spoon, but she decides it’s more important to sleep the way Jake, and really, both of them, prefer it, to give Jake and herself a sense of normalcy.

When she wakes up the next morning, however, Jake’s curled around her, as though he’s sensed her need for comfort. Amy’s awash with intensely mixed feelings. On the one hand, her heart feels ready to fling itself out of her chest, because _she’s marrying Jake Peralta today_. On the other hand, she has to say goodbye to him later, and that feeling of dread makes her want to stay tucked away in the safety of the bedclothes and Jake’s arms. But somebody has to be the morning person, she tells herself, so she sits up and pushes Jake’s hair back off his forehead.

“Jake, sweetheart, wake up. We’re getting married today.”

“Noice,” he says, still 20% asleep, but he rolls out of bed. “I’ll make pancakes.”

“Oh,” says Amy, thinking of the time, “I could just—”

“Nope,” Jake declares. “It’s our wedding day, and we are both having a proper breakfast, no protein shakes.”

They eat quickly, but Jake holds Amy’s hand while they eat and asks what she thinks about the case he worked yesterday.

“What should we wear?” Jake asks after breakfast.

Amy thinks a moment. “How about that suit you wore at Thanksgiving two years ago?”

Jake nods, pleased. “I do have it on good authority that I look beautiful in it.” Amy rolls her eyes at him, but he has a point.

“What about you?” Jake says.

Amy wrinkles her nose. “I’m not sure. Let’s go look in my closet.”

“How about that one?” Jake points to a short-sleeved, knee-length dress made of layers of diaphanous fabric, a combination of the palest of lavenders, pinks, and baby blues. Amy had bought it a while ago and loves it, but hasn’t had the right event to wear it to yet. This is the perfect occasion, and it’ll match the shirt Jake usually pairs with his suit.

“Excellent choice,” she says, and puts it on while Jake brushes his teeth. She likes the easy comfort of getting ready for the day together, something that had been full of stilted silence with past boyfriends.

Jake’s already picked up the nervous habit of twisting his ring around his finger, and is doing so while Amy styles her hair, when he says, “Wait, Amy, what about your ring?”

“Oh. I mean, I didn’t buy one. I guess we could use one that I have, like my grandmother’s or something…”

Jake frowns. “Actually…I have my Nana’s wedding ring, that she wanted me to have for this sort of thing. If I had proposed to you—and with an actual plan, not on the spot, which definitely has not almost happened before—I would’ve bought you a different ring, because I feel like it should be unique to you, and because…just…yeah.”

Amy knows the unsaid thought: that Jake would have wanted to buy her a ring to prove his seriousness and his commitment, not only to her, but also to improving his finances.

“Anyway,” says Jake, “it’s old-fashioned and grandmotherly, so you just might like it. We can stop by apartment on our way out and see what you think of it, and get my suit, too.”

“Sounds good,” Amy says. “I’d be honored to wear it.”

They drive to Jake’s apartment, and he asks her to wait a minute while he gets dressed and finds the ring. She absorbs herself in looking at (and, okay, maybe tidying) his bookshelf, but turns around when he clears his throat.

Jake’s down on one knee, dashing in the navy blue suit, and she smiles at the gesture. As much as she loved proposing to him, she really would have enjoyed being surprised with a proposal from him.

“Amy Santiago,” Jake says gravely. “Love of my life, light of my heart. I know this may come as a bit of a shock, but I really want to marry you.”

“Darling, how spontaneous of you!”

He holds out the ring, and _oh_ , it’s perfect. The gold matches Jake’s ring pretty well, by some miracle, and is engraved with a beautiful pattern nestling a small, round cut diamond.

“Jake, it’s beautiful. It’s like I picked it out for myself.”

“Oh, good. It would be pretty terrible if you didn’t like it. Nana, thank you for this ring and for having good taste. Or at least, Santiago-ish taste,” he jokes.

“All right, you,” Amy rolls her eyes. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

The drive to City Hall in Manhattan is long, but nice, especially with the sun and spring in the air. There’s something about springtime in New York that makes Amy feel like the whole city has her back, that everyone is a confidante sharing one big, wonderful secret.

Places like City Hall are always beautiful to Amy, but the system they’ve got set up for weddings is truly impressive, with screens flashing numbers like they’re at an airport or something. They sit down to wait, and it’s sweet to watch the other couples in the lobby.

“You look great,” says Jake. “I like the dress.”

“I swear you say that when you can’t think of anything else, just to fill the silence,” Amy teases him.

“Well you always look beautiful, so it’s a very handy conversation starter,” Jake says, grinning.

Amy smiles and bumps her shoulder against his. “Thanks. You look beautiful, too.”

“Jeez, Santiago, get a new compliment,” Jake says, but he still looks down at his shoes.

Fortunately, arriving early on a Thursday morning means they don’t have to wait too long for their turn. Their number, B313, flashes, and they walk to the doorway underneath the sign to enter the chapel.  

“This is exciting,” Jake whispers.

“Welcome, guys! How you doing?” calls the officiant as he walks in. He’s a friendly man with a black mustache and a face full of smile lines. “I’m James Mitchell, and I’ll be officiating your wedding today.”

Jake and Amy introduce themselves and they chat briefly, telling James that they’re detectives and this is sort of a spur-of-the-moment wedding and they’re trying to make it to work on time.

After they’ve gone through the basics of the ceremony and signed the license, James asks, “Would you like me to use the standard vows or did you write your own?”

“Oh, um, I didn’t think of that,” Amy’s face is already burning with shame.

“Actually, I prepared a little something,” says Jake, looking at Amy carefully. She’s warmed with a surge of affection, and beams at Jake; he must have done it last night, after she’d fallen asleep.

“All right,” says James. “The marriage contract is most solemn and must be entered into thoughtfully and seriously, with a deep awareness of its obligations and responsibilities. So, before you say your vows, I’ll ask you to declare your intent to be bound by them.

“Jake, do you take Amy to be your wife, to live with her in marriage, to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Jake says, and there’s that steadfast smile again.

“Amy, do you take Jake to be your husband, to live with him in marriage, to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” says Amy, her chest bubbly-warm with contentment.

“Then,” James continues, “mindful of the declarations you’ve made, and knowing that you’ll be held accountable for them, now you’ll say the marriage vows you’ve written.”

Jake pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and takes a deep breath. “Amy, one morning, several weeks into our relationship, when our job was terrible and I didn’t want to go to work, you gave me a sticker just for waking up. I’ve known at least since then, probably longer, that I never want to wake up without you by my side, and that as long as you’re with me, anything can be overcome. Even if work is awful, that’s okay, because you bring so much joy and fulfillment to my life and have made me appreciate life outside our job. Thank you for loving me and caring for me as you did that morning. I want to always do the same for you. So here are my vows: I promise to never stop trying to make your days happier. I promise to support you in all your endeavors. I promise not to let our marriage become dependent on our jobs or to let our jobs interfere with our marriage. I promise to let myself be open and vulnerable with you. I promise to communicate with you, and to always be here for you to confide in and to comfort you. I promise to always remind you how magnificent and cherished you are, and to remember that you are my best friend and my partner in all things. I would promise to love you forever, but I already know I’ll do that. Instead, I promise to never forget it and to always put in the work that our love deserves. I love you, Amy Santiago, and I can’t wait to be married to you.”

There are tears running down Amy’s cheeks, and Jake looks rather glassy-eyed himself. He will never stop surprising her. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” she jokes.

Jake looks awed at the compliment, but recovers quickly. “Plagiarized by my own fiancée! You’re such a rule breaker.”

“Yeah, you bring it out in me. But seriously, I promise to do all of those things for you, but to do them in the way that’s best for you.” Amy reaches for the paper and repeats all of Jake’s promises.

“Now, for the exchange of rings,” says James. Amy grabs them from the zip-pocket of her purse and hands them to James. “Jake, please repeat after me, and then place the ring on Amy’s finger. ‘Amy, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. As it encircles your finger, may it remind you always that you are surrounded by my enduring love.’”

Jake does so, and Amy does the same for him.

“With the authority vested in me by the City of New York,” says James, “and with great joy, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Amy reaches up to cup Jake’s face in her hands and pulls him down for a kiss.

 

* * *

 

Amy and Jake are both due at work at ten. Holt is waiting for her, Amy knows, but no one else is around for Jake to make the announcement to.

 “Peralta, Santiago, my office,” Holt calls when he sees them.

 Once they’re inside, Jake says smugly, “It’s actually Santiago-Peralta, Santiago-Peralta now.”

 “We didn’t officially change our names—” Amy interjects.

 “Nicely done,” Holt says to Amy, with an admiring nod.

 “True that,” says Jake. “Wait—how’d you know it was Amy’s idea?”

 “Actually, if I may be so bold to say that it was my idea—” says Holt, at the same time Amy says, “Can I tell him now?”

 “Yes. I’ll give you two some time before I brief you. Congratulations, Detectives.”

 Amy rests her hands on Jake’s collarbone. “Jake, I’m going undercover on the Iverson case.”

 “I know. Why else would you propose after less than a year of dating and then insist we get married the next morning?”

 “Hey,” says Amy sharply. “I already knew I wanted to marry you, okay? It wasn’t an impulse decision. The case just sped things up. And I’m only allowed to tell you about the case because we got married this morning. No one else can know, and if we hadn’t gotten married, I would have had to break up with you to maintain cover.”

 “Awww, you’d rather marry me then break up with me?”

 “Jake, the whole point of marrying someone is that you never want to break up with them. And I especially couldn’t break up with you under these circumstances.”

 “So why is this a secret from the squad?”

 “I guess it’s the nature of the mission.”

 “What, that it’s apparently more dangerous than going _undercover with the mafia_?”

 Amy smiles wryly. “Well, I meant that it’s a secret because we don’t have the cover story of my being fired, and I’m going undercover as someone else, not Amy Santiago. But it is a somewhat risky mission, and you know…if something bad goes down, I think I’d be pissed at myself if I didn’t marry you.”

 Jake’s face breaks at that. “Amy,” he says, and she can hear the tears in his voice. Amy hugs him, rubs his shoulder blades.

 “I’m really proud of you, and I know you need to do this and all, but I’m so scared,” Jake says into her hair.

 “Me too,” Amy tells him. “But I’ll be careful, and we’re going to be fine.”

 “Thank you. For telling me, and not breaking up with me, and marrying me so you could do that. It, uh, means a lot.”

 Amy’s heart is breaking. “Jake. I know it’s still hard for you to believe sometimes. But I love you, and I will miss you terribly, and I’ll think about you every hour of every day, and I’ll send you all my love. And I just need you to know that—how loved you are—while I’m away, okay?”

 Jake takes a big, stuttering breath, and nods. “Okay. All of that goes for you, too.”

 “I’m not leaving you,” Amy says firmly. “I’m coming back, and we’re going to have a proper wedding, and a wonderful honeymoon.

“Also…I have something for you.” Amy pulls a stack of letters out of her purse, all written on her best stationery. “I’ve been saving these for the right time. Some of them are from when you were undercover, and I missed you. Some are from before we were together. I didn’t know if I’d ever show you them, but they were a way to vent my feelings. And some of them are from after we started dating. Those ones I wrote with giving them to you on a special occasion in mind. I won’t be able to contact you while I’m gone, so I thought this was the next best thing.”

Jake’s looking at her the way he looked at her when she said “screw light and breezy,” the way he did when she told him she loved him for the first time.

“So can I use your stationery while you’re gone? Because I’ll, uh, have some letters to write you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm [haylestorming](http://haylestorming.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to say hi and talk about B99 with me, or send me prompts.
> 
> Some credit where credit is due: Many, many thanks to my amazing friend Claire ([clairiefresh](http://clairiefresh.tumblr.com/) on tumblr), who has been a wonderful support system, sounding board, and beta reader. She helped me make several decisions and inspired the title! The concept of Jake making Amy feel “the most me” is borrowed from A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle, because I have always found that to be one of the best descriptions of what love feels like. I think multiple people have written or discussed a proposal in the evidence lockup, but I was reminded of the idea by [this](http://smolperalta.tumblr.com/post/127409088360/i-really-hope-when-jake-and-amy-get-engaged-it) tumblr post. I think I have also seen the idea of Jake giving Amy his Nana’s ring before, but I’m not sure where. If there’s someone I should credit, please let me know! I borrowed the ceremony dialogue/format from parts of [this](http://images.theknot.com/SecularCeremonyScript1.pdf) script, and the ring vows from [this](http://weddings.about.com/od/weddingvows/a/ringceremony.htm) page, both of which I understand to be available for use.
> 
> Other notes that may be of interest: I fudged with the details of a City Hall wedding because I plotted this out before researching, and I thought my original idea worked better for the story than the following-real-life-rules version. (The mustached officiant, James Mitchell, is real, though! I borrowed a bit from [this](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/fashion/weddings/surrounded-by-love-all-day-field-notes.html?_r=1) article and the next link.) Technically it takes two days, because the wedding can only occur 24 hours after submitting the marriage license, and a witness is required (read more [here](http://apracticalwedding.com/2014/04/get-married-new-york-city-hall/)). Also, based off what I read [here](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/fashion/05marry.html), I doubt Lin and Darlene were legally married by Holt, and in this story, Amy absolutely needs their wedding to be official. Pretend with me that their City Hall one is—you gotta draw the line somewhere, I guess? I also played pretty fast and loose with all the undercover stuff, of course. I hope you didn’t have to suspend your disbelief too much, or if you did, you did so willingly!


End file.
